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A new night time emergency service is being launched by Leicestershire’s air ambulance charity.

The new service, which will operate until 2am, ensures specialist trauma doctors and paramedics will be on the county’s roads seven days a week.

Currently the East Midlands has no dedicated doctor-led out-of-hours pre-hospital critical car provision.

Richard Clayton, director of operations for Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Rutland Air Ambulance, said: “This new service will undoubtedly save lives. It means that expertise of our highly trained team of trauma doctors and critical car paramedics who normally fly on the helicopters during daylight, will be available at night.

“We looked at extending the operating hours of the helicopter after dark, but it makes much more sense at this time to use a rapid response vehicle.

“Local roads are much clearer in the evening and our pilot project demonstrated that we can reach a lot more people at night by car than by helicopter.”

To fund the initiative the charity, which receives no government funding, launched a successful appeal to meet the £69,000 cost of setting up the service and getting the car on the road.

They will have to raise a further £200,000 per year to keep the service on the road.

It is expected that the car, alongside a second vehicle covering Warwickshire and Northamptonshire, will handle more than 1,500 missions a year.

In addition to providing enhanced care at accidents and medical emergencies, the night car service will also offer an interception service and provide secondary transfers from local hospitals to major trauma centres.

The new car will be unveiled to the public in Leicester city centre on Saturday May 28 from 10am to 3pm